Quick Facts
Biography
Born in Spain 1994, March 22. Her interest in photography started after she was 14 years old and her grandparents gave her a cellphone with a camera. After she realized what she could do with a little device her interest started to grow, so she just kept shooting and gets more cameras to improve her skills. In 2011 Salas’ work was selected in Emergent Festival of Lleida. Before starting photography, she was a ballet ballerina, and this is why she was first attracted to photographs topic related to the dance. Nevertheless, after suffering from anorexia, she had to give entirely to ballet and started to immerse herself more into the photography world.
Work
By 2013, at the age of 19, she was the finalist in the Sony Word Photography Awards for her photograph Ariadna in Urquinaona from her series Urquinaona shot in an abandoned building in Spain, which she described: 'This is a building that was going to be demolished to have a hotel built. Luckily, I found it before the demolition, and its caretaker allowed me to explore the amazing place. It was probably some of the most magical places I’ve ever been. It’s located in the Barcelona city center, and is now a hotel.'
After her success in the Sony Word Photography Awards, Vicente Salas began a project in Australia along with the photographer Ibai Acevedo named ANTIPODES. She started to study visual research in the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya and then began to explore Mexico and its Society.
In 2016 her series of work about the women penitentiary was released. Berta Vicente Salas traveled to Mexico to teach photography in the prison of Ciudad de Juarez as a social program and began her series Centro Penintenciario de Menores, Ciudad De Juarez Mexico. Here her interest in Mexican culture began to grow so she started to travel different cities to document people live.
Her photograph uses a lot of soft light, which gives her a polished quality to her textures. Her delicacy in the lines of her pictures is due to the proper use of the shadows. Furthermore, 'she makes use of the environment around her to create marvelous scenes that hearken back to painters from the Renaissance, and her technical implementation is exceptional'. Her spotless composition, combined with a broad arranges between her highlights and her shadows give her a magic feel to her art.
In an interview for IT Fashion online magazine, Berta Vicente Salas explained the process of her work and said:
‘I have the feeling of always being rehearsing. I practice and then I start creating. I want to experiment and then be sure of what I am doing. What I do, I do it guiding myself through my interests of the moment, and I am drawn to people. I love them. They are fascinating. I love how you can create a time of making a picture and understand what the person you are photographing is giving to you.’
Awards
2014: FLICKR 20 under 20: Selected photographer 2014: Project GrisArt Scholarship
2013: Fototalentos Banco Santander Foundation: First prize 2013: Sony World Photography Awards: First position for portrait category.
2012: Sony World Photography Awards: Finalist in the category of portraits for the convocation of YOUTH.
2011: Emergent Festival of Lleida: selected artist.
Exhibitions
2015: TEDxyouth BCN: Sala Ciutat, Barcelona City Hall
2014: FLICKR 20 under 20 en Milk Studios, New York
2014: PALMAPHOTO 2014 Xavier Fiol Gallery, Palma de Mallorca, España
2014: REVELA-T festival in Can Manyer Library, Vilassar de Dalt-Barcelona
2014: Barcelona Negra, Valid Foto Gallery, Barcelona
2014: O.F.N.I in Valid Foto Gallery, Barcelona
2013: Sony World Photography Awards 2013, Somerset House (Arts and Cultural Centre) London 2013: Colecciona el mundo in Valid Foto Gallery, Barcelona
2013: Realidad y emoción in Valid Foto Gallery, Barcelona
2012: Sony World Photography Awards 2012, Somerset House (Arts and Cultural Centre) London 2012: Emergent Lleida 2011, Valid Foto Gallery, Barcelona